John, list, I agree about Peirce’s difference with Lewis wrt the a priori. I don’t see > how that is related to the issue of the effability of percepts, though.
Because Lewis views percepts (the "given") as ineffable, he requires the introduction of the pragmatic a priori in order to interpret them so as to give us experience, and from there empirical knowledge becomes possible. Peirce rejects the introduction of the pragmatic a priori in order to interpret percepts. The percepts themselves are a part of what goes into the perceptual judgments about them, which means that they are effable, i.e. they can be put into words, because they can be interpreted in signs at the level of perceptual judgments. My concern is that, since all thought is in signs, either percepts are > thoughts and they have secondness and thirdness as well as firstness (I > have called them existence and interpretation, respectively, recently here > and argued that only distinction, among experiences, is self-contained in > all of these respects, or else they are not thoughts. If they are not > thoughts, then I question whether it makes sense to refer to them as > determinate contents of experiences. I'm not sure that if they are not thoughts, that means they cannot be determinate contents of experiences. I suppose I would expect that if a perceptual judgment is an experience, and has a percept for its content, then the percept would be a determinate content of an experience. But I'm not interested in arguing that they are not thoughts. It comes to mind for me that Peirce tends to think of thoughts in the way that some medieval thinkers did, as objective, and that it is thinking which is subjective. If this is right, then I don't find it problematic to think of percepts as thoughts. Up to this point I had already felt it acknowledged that percepts have Secondness, and there was a question recently as to whether Firstness (vagueness) applies to percepts as well. It is pretty clear now that Firstness does, and I find it difficult to deny that Thirdness does. If we suppose that a phenomenon has the three Categories applicable to it, how are we to deny that a percept is a phenomenon? Is it supposed to simply be a part of a phenomenon? Maybe the idea is that a phenomenon is a percept plus perceptual judgment, such that the perceptual judgment is what represents the Thirdness found in the phenomenon. I'm not really so sure about this though, since Peirce suggested that a percept can be a sign, which directly implies that Thirdness does apply to it. I think there is a difference between the Thirdness of the percept and the Thirdness found in a perceptual judgment. But I also think that the percept in part determines the Thirdness of the perceptual judgment. So, the percept is effable, helping to determine how it is interpreted in thought, just as it helps to determine how its object is interpreted in thought. Of course, the object helps to determine the percept which represents it, which means the object is itself effable. Or, as I should prefer to put it, the object is not simply knowable with respect to some transcendental structure of understanding that is alien to the object itself; rather, the object in itself is knowable, and will force understanding of it to conform to it. 'Effability' goes all the way down to the object itself, and so obviously the same goes for percepts of it, and perceptual judgments of it, and (I know it goes without saying) more developed signs of it. -- Franklin ------------------------------------------------- On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 2:42 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: > Franklin, List, > > > > I agree about Peirce’s difference with Lewis wrt the a priori. I don’t see > how that is related to the issue of the effability of percepts, though. > > > > You are arguing below that each percept has its own individuality. I have > no quarrel with that. My concern is that, since all thought is in signs, > either percepts are thoughts and they have secondness and thirdness as well > as firstness (I have called them existence and interpretation, > respectively, recently here and argued that only distinction, among > experiences, is self-contained in all of these respects, or else they are > not thoughts. If they are not thoughts, then I question whether it makes > sense to refer to them as determinate contents of experiences. It seems to > me that Quine, Sellars and Lewis share my concerns. Though their arguments > are somewhat different I think there is a convergence of their inferences > towards what Lewis called ineffability. The main problem generated is for > the grounds of empirical claims, which become very much more fluid than in > most versions of empiricism and positivism. I don’t see that Peirce avoids > this in any interesting way, nor does it seem to me that, given his > fallibilism and also his view that all thought is in signs, he should avoid > it. > > > > I would argue that the grounds for knowledge are the topological > structures of the distinctions in our experience. This is a form of > information theoretic structure that I think Dretske, for one, has shown to > be much more productive than might seem at first. Nonetheless, it is a > pretty radical idea in epistemology at this stage. What I have called the > effability issue is the motivation for moving in this radical direction, > since it seems to rule out other kinds of ground for knowledge. > > > > John Collier > > Professor Emeritus, UKZN > > http://web.ncf.ca/collier > > > > *From:* Franklin Ransom [mailto:pragmaticist.lo...@gmail.com] > *Sent:* Sunday, 13 December 2015 23:19 > *To:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu 1 > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations > > > > John, list, > > > > I will become much less active for the next few months after today. > > > > I would agree that the pragmatist C.I. Lewis viewed appearances as > ineffable, and the analytic philosopher Quine was probably the same way; of > Sellars, I couldn't say. Peirce does not view appearances as ineffable > though. > > > > It should be understood that C.I. Lewis has the idea of the 'given', which > together with his 'pragmatic a priori' concepts, permits the possibility of > empirical knowledge. The 'pragmatic a priori' concepts are not themselves > empirical, but given freely by the mind to make sense of the given and > thereby give one experience, of which empirical knowledge is then possible. > If I understand Quine rightly, he was of the view that the division between > these analytic, pragmatic a priori concepts and the concepts of empirical > knowledge (i.e., synthetic concepts) is not a division that holds strictly. > In any case, there is the attempt to describe the given for both. > > > > I don't think Peirce subscribes to the view of Lewis's 'conceptual > pragmatism', and the need for the pragmatic a priori. The pragmatic a > priori is really a sort of Kantian move that Peirce would have eschewed. > The appearances, or phenomena, are indeed effable, or else perceptual > judgments would be impossible as judgments about percepts. Note that > perceptual judgments are not the result of applying a priori concepts to > percepts, at least not in Lewis's sense. For Lewis, the pragmatic a priori > can be held by the mind regardless of their truth; he insists that they are > held by the mind as being useful for interpreting the given, but can never > be false, because they make falsity possible in empirical knowledge; the a > priori concepts can only be rejected because they cease to be useful. But > for Peirce, perceptual judgments, like any other judgments, can be false, > and we can learn that they were false later. It is simply the case that at > the time of the perceptual judgment occurring, we are in no position to > question its veracity or to control conduct with respect to it. > > > > I would like to point out though that every phenomenon has a quality > unique to it which is, strictly speaking, ineffable, being sui generis. > Only this does not make the phenomenon itself ineffable, and it does not > mean the quality is not like other qualities experienced, but only that it > is not precisely the same as those other qualities. > > > > -- Franklin > > > > --------------------------------------------- > > > > > > On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 1:20 PM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: > > Jon, > > It intends to mean saving the appearances, but appearances, according to > many pragmatists (C.I. Lewis, Quine, Sellars, probably Peirce) are > ineffable, to use Lewis's term. We (Konrad and I) went to distinctions > because there is no need to eff them. In order to save them. The current > discussion about the nature of percepts and their distinction from > perceptual judgements is relevant here. There is nothing in appearances > alone that makes the distinction, since any qualisign must be interpreted > to be a sign, implying a judgement. We can separate the two abstractly, > however, and with distinctions, their quality implies their existence > directly. Even with the mentioned self/non-self distinction (basic to using > the Pragmatic Maxim) there is a necessary abduction involved to the self > and non-self classes. But in the case of distinctions alone we have > experiences that imply both existence (secondness ) and interpretation > (thirdness) as either "this" or "that". > > John > > John Collier > Professor Emeritus, UKZN > http://web.ncf.ca/collier > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawb...@att.net] > > Sent: Sunday, 13 December 2015 19:21 > > To: John Collier; Matt Faunce; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu 1 > > Subject: Re: signs, correlates, and triadic relations > > > > John, List, > > > > I have personally always understood “saving the phenomena” to mean > > preserving the appearances, that is, whatever explanation we come up with > > must leave the appearances invariant. > > > > I remember reading somewhere that the Greek “sozein” could mean either > > save or solve. I thought it was Ian Hacking but not sure. > > Poking around the web for it did turn up this historical comment: > > > > https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/%CF%83%E1%BF%B4%CE%B6%C > <https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/%CF%83%E1%BF%B4%CE%B6%25C> > > E%B5%CE%B9%CE%BD-%CF%84%E1%BD%B0- > > %CF%86%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8C%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%BD%CE%B > > 1-sozein-ta-phainomena/ > > > > Regards, > > > > Jon > > > > On 12/13/2015 5:28 AM, John Collier wrote: > > > Peirce List, > > > > > > Here is a link to a Peirce influenced paper that makes the basic point > Matt > > has made here. It is based on work in my PhD dissertation that I am in > the > > process of redoing 30-some years later to deal with problems of > continuity of > > knowledge through radical theory change (and across different discourses > > and cultures, for that matter). There was some brief attention to that > work at > > the time, but I was already working with biologists on an information > > dynamics approach to self-organization in evolution, and I set it aside. > My co- > > author on the paper is a former student of mine who is one of the few to > > maintain and interest in the issues, though he is making his name more > in the > > cognitive science of religion and superstition these days. > > > > > > * Saving the distinctions: Distinctions as the epistemologically > > > significant content of > > experience<http://bacon.umcs.lublin.pl/~ktalmont/pdf/Save%20distinctions > > .pdf> (2004, with Konrad Talmont-Kaminski) The title is a sideways > reference > > to “saving the phenomena” as used by Bas van Fraassen, who seems to have > > got it from Duhem. > > > > > > John Collier > > > Professor Emeritus, UKZN > > > http://web.ncf.ca/collier > > > > > > > -- > > > > academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey > > my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: > > http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ > > isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA > > oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey > > facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. 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